‘The kind that could dance circles around the morons you have in your department, Barbara.’ DA Bradley motioned his head in Hunter and Garcia’s direction.
‘Alfredo Ortega is the link I found on Nicholson’s side,’ Alice replied in an even voice, not allowing the argument to heat up any further, and fetching a new photo printout from her folder. She handed a copy around to everyone once again. ‘Now let me introduce you to Ken Sands.’
The new mugshot looked a lot more recent than the one from Ortega. The man on it looked to be in his mid-twenties. His skin had a golden tone attributed more to heavy sunbathing than ethnicity. His cheeks were pitted like a sponge from acne scars, probably dating back to his teens. His eyes were so dark they were almost black. He had the spaced-out stare of an intravenous drug user, but there was something else in those challenging eyes – something cold and frightening. Something evil. His dark hair was cropped short, and he had the confident smile of someone who knew he’d get revenge some day.
‘OK, and what does this Ken Sands bring to the party?’ Garcia asked.
Alice smiled a cheeky smile. ‘Quite a lot.’
Forty-Seven
‘Sands grew up with Ortega in Paramount,’ Alice read out of a new document. ‘They were best friends. Neither had any brothers or sisters, and that brought them even closer together. They both came from poor families. Sands’s father drank a lot, so life in his house wasn’t exactly perfect. Sands hated being home. He hated his father and the beatings he used to get from him. He spent most of his time out on the streets and with Ortega. Soon they started getting involved with drugs, gangs, fights – you know the drill.’
The phone on Captain Blake’s desk rang and she reached for it. ‘Not now.’ She slammed the phone back down. ‘Carry on.’
Alice coughed to clear her throat. ‘Sands and Ortega went to Paramount High School. Ortega was a below-average student, but Sands, despite being disruptive, had better grades than most would expect. Getting accepted into college wouldn’t have been a problem if he had wanted, and had the means. But their street life was already escalating into a criminal one, and when they were seventeen they both got busted for auto theft and possession of marijuana. That cost them a year in juvie hall.
‘Their quick spell inside rattled Ortega. He decided he didn’t really want to carry on with that life. He met Pam soon after he was released. They got married a couple of years later. Though he was still a drug user, he got a job at the warehouse, as I said, and everything indicated that he was leaving the street life behind.’
‘But not Sands,’ Hunter deduced.
A quick headshake. ‘Not Sands. He carried on as a petty criminal for a while after he was released, but in juvie he made quite a few contacts. Before you knew it, he was dealing drugs in a major way.’
‘How did you come by all this information so fast?’ Garcia asked.
‘The DA’s office keeps extensive files on everyone we prosecute,’ Alice replied, nodding at Bradley and flipping a page on her report. ‘One night, Sands got back home drunk and high, had
‘What a pleasant guy,’ Garcia said, leaning against the window.
‘You said your application was looking for links between family and relatives,’ Hunter cut in. ‘How did you manage to link Sands to Ortega?’
‘With his wife murdered, Ortega listed Ken Sands as his next of kin after he got the death penalty,’ Alice clarified. ‘As I said, they were like brothers when young. You suggested that we searched for family members, gang members, anyone on the outside who could seek revenge on someone else’s behalf. Well, Ken Sands certainly fits that category.’
‘No arguments there,’ Garcia said.
‘But here’s where it gets good,’ Alice added. ‘Andrew Nashorn was the detective who arrested Sands.’
It felt as if static electricity had been let loose in the room for a moment.
‘Sands’s girlfriend, Gina, was petrified of him, and rightly so. He’d beaten her up before, many times, it transpired. Nashorn was the one who managed to convince her to press charges when she was well enough. Sands was charged with aggravated battery to a live-in partner with the use of a deadly weapon.
‘Which is a felony according to California Penal Code 245,’ DA Bradley added.
Alice nodded. ‘Add to that the fact that when he was apprehended he was high and carrying over a kilo of heroin, and you get a nine-and-a-half-years prison sentence. He went to the California State Prison in Lancaster.’
‘How long ago was that?’ the captain asked.